


Voice of Reason

by spocksmile



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: M/M, Teen Kirk, Teen Spock
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-15
Updated: 2015-04-14
Packaged: 2018-03-23 00:26:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3748618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spocksmile/pseuds/spocksmile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You struggle to realize the significance of your existence. The universe will never find you significant, as it has no opinion concerning the value of individual life. But you are real now, as real as your mind, which is, in fact, the only meaningful reality. To extinguish your life now is to extinguish any semblance of significance to yourself. Let death find you in its own time. The universe has already kept you this long."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Voice of Reason

**Author's Note:**

> Jim's an angsty teenager in this first chapter. The next chapter will cut to their five-year mission, TOS-era.  
> Also, I know a cell phone probably isn't very realistic for the time period, but I don't actually give a shit. Enjoy!

**Name: James Tiberius Kirk**

**Star Date: 2250**

**Age: 17**

 

This must not be so different from meeting death face to face. If he could let himself fall, the earth would extinguish him soundlessly, carelessly. _If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound?_ Reality exists only in the sentient mind, because the universe does not question its own actions. A tree makes a sound when it falls in the forest, but its sound is insignificant because a forest does not think.

Similarly, if Jim Kirk falls in the desert, does he make a sound? It doesn’t matter. He wouldn’t be there to hear the crack of his bones against the canyon floor. The rocks and the dirt don’t hear. They might not even exist once he’s gone.

He leans forward and lets the empty breeze of nothingness before him pull him downward. If only he could tip over just a little bit more, unbalance and let only the friction of the air keep him from nonexistence.

On the way down, what might he realize? He recalls accounts of those who survived their jump off the Golden Gate Bridge, that on their way down they realized all their problems could be fixed. _But this can’t be fixed, can it?_ The problem of existence cannot be solved, the gap between his mind and the physical world cannot be breached.

If reality is self-invented, surely reality can produce out of its fabric a way for him to matter.

He pulls his phone from his back pocket, opens the keypad. Maybe if he’s lucky, he can dial up God. God, who only exists in the sentient mind.

He shuts his eyes, thumbs blindly at the screen. Praying to any ignorant creation of a God that he is not the only being in this dimension of illusion.

He waits, evens his breath. Hears the phone click, knows someone has picked up, and before they can speak he spits out, “Tell me how I know you’re real. Tell me why I shouldn’t jump off this cliff right now.”

_The edge of this canyon,_ he thinks. Remembers another time it nearly killed him. He’d clung to its edge, fought to keep his life. Never knew he was grappling for a trifle.

A steady voice comes through the line. “Why do you wish to end your life?” It is simultaneously monotonous and curious. Soft and firm.

“I could fall like a pebble from the edge. But if the universe is a pebble, I’m not even one cell. Not a single subatomic particle.”

There is a brief silence; a calculated one, thoughtfully rendered, as the voice considers Jim’s claim. “I am not inclined to cater to the instability of your emotion. But there are logical reasons not to commit suicide.”

Jim lays back against the sand, feels the sun beat against his chest and burn into his eyes. “Hit me with your best shot.”

A pause. “I will dismiss that request as a meaningless human mantra.” Then the voice continues, “You struggle to realize the significance of your existence. The universe will never find you significant, as it has no opinion concerning the value of individual life. But you are real now, as real as your mind, which is, in fact, the only meaningful reality. To extinguish your life now is to extinguish any semblance of significance to yourself. Let death find you in its own time. The universe has already kept you this long.”

Jim is quiet for a stretched moment. “The universe has already kept me this long,” he repeats reverently, and lets his free hand spread out over the scorching dirt. He stares, unfocused, into the bottomless sky, the blue curtain pulled over the endless chasm of space. Tries to anchor himself, hoist himself up onto the curve of the earth the way he’d done when he was a boy.

He imagines that this pacific voice is his gravity. “If reality exists only in my head,” he began, “then I guess you’re real no matter how I look at it.”

“Reality is a relative concept. It is whatever you perceive, objectively, to exist. Your mind, at least, is in this dimension, even if it is a dimension of your own creation. You have no logical reason to view this fact negatively. It simply is as it is.”

“Only my emotions tell me otherwise?”

“Affirmative.”

Against his will, Jim’s lips spread in a smile. Deep breath….

_This voice will carry me forward._

“I like you, stranger,” Jim says.

Astonished silence.

He continues, “Maybe we’ll really meet someday. In another life.” _I’ll picture you this way; the color of the sky. Enveloping my vision. Balanced carefully, holding me down against the eggshell skin of the universe._

“Indeed,” comes the reply, “If reality wills it.”

 


End file.
